(1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to machines for farming and more particularly to machines for treatment of annual crops, preparation of the plants for harvesting, shredding harvested crops, and mowing uncultivated lands such as turn rows, or turn abouts, or road sides.
For example a machine according to this invention is used for cutting the tops off of cotton plants before harvesting. Also the machine is adapted to shred the remains of cotton and other annual crops after harvesting. Farmers have ordinary skill in this art.
(2) Description of the Related Art
Shredder units are known to the prior art. However, normally these prior art shredders have a rotating shaft extending to each of three individual units. Each individual unit has a right angle gear drive upon it. Normally each unit will have an 80 inch blade with the surrounding cover. This results in a heavy expensive unit.
MARQUIS ET AL, U.S. Pat. No. 1,325,406 issued Dec. 16, 1919, discloses a cutter for topping cotton for boll-weevil control. The cutting mechanism for MARQUIS was sickle bar cutters.
SAMPEI ET AL, U.S. Pat. No. 4,962,636 issued Oct. 16, 1990, discloses a lawn mower having three cutting knives attached to vertical shafts. The knives as a unit with the individual belt drive are mounted for raising and lowering with respect to the frame of the vehicle. The motor drive belt remains at a constant height on the vehicle.
KAWASAKI ET AL U.S. Pat. No. 4,291,522 issued Sep. 29, 1981 is similar to SAMPEI ET AL except the cutting unit which is raised and lowered includes a right angled gear box which is raised and lowered with the cutting knives. There are three cutting knives one which is mounted on the same shaft as the right angle gear box and the other two are driven by a single belt twining about pulleys on the shaft holding the knives of each unit.
WALLACE U.S. Pat. No. 1,799,714 issued Apr. 7, 1931 discloses a lawn mower having three vertical shafts with a cutting knife on each vertical shaft. The center vertical shaft is driven by the shaft of an electric motor and the other two shafts are driven by separate belts from the electric motor to the pulley upon the shaft. The entire cutting assembly of Wallace may be raised or lowered by raising or lowering the cutting mechanism frame with respect to the lawn mower frame.
(1) Progressive Contribution to the Art
This invention is for a shredder or topper which is readily attachable to modern tractors with three point hitches. A wide swath is made which may cover as much as eight 40 inch rows of cotton at one pass. To enable the tractor to carry this equipment requires that the equipment be light weight. Therefore the cutting knives are driven by belt drives which are lighter as well as less expensive than gear drives. The knives are mounted upon vertical shafts. All the shafts are of the same length for uniform cutting height. To avoid contact of the adjacent knives, the knives are staggered on either side of a beam. In this way the paths of adjacent knives may over lap but the adjacent knives are spaced apart. When mowing, an overlap is desirable so a gap is not present. Most of the cutting assemblies for each row are identical thereby reducing the amount of repair parts needed.
When the implement is used to mow turn rows a swath of about 20 feet (six 40 inch rows) or less is desirable because of maneuvering necessary. However, when topping an additional two rows is desirable. Therefore a basic unit with six knife units is built with two attachable wings to carry another knife unit each is desired.
When topping cotton, the top of the plants in the drill are the only concern; therefore it is not important that the knives overlap. Therefore on the wings a wing shaft 40xe2x80x3 from the permanent out board shaft with a 25 inch knife is adequate.
Also provisions are made to have a single set of wheels which maybe used as gage wheels when the unit is in operation in the field and which may also be used as trailer wheels when the unit is being to towed from one field to the other or to storage area.
Skids are mounted on each side of the implement to prevent the knives from contacting the ground. Spring loaded idler pulleys bear against the slack run of each belt to insure against belt slippage. Also the idler pulleys lengthen the life of the belts.
(2) Objects of this Invention
An object of this invention is to provide an implement which may be used (1) to rapidly cut the tops from plants before harvest, (2) to shred plants left standing after harvest, and (3) to mow weeds around the fields.
Another object is to provide such an implement which with only one set of wheels so that one set of wheels may be used both to be used as gage wheels and trailer wheels.
Further objects are to achieve the above with a device that is sturdy, compact, durable, lightweight, simple, safe, efficient, versatile, ecologically compatible, low maintance energy conserving, and reliable, yet inexpensive and easy to manufacture, attach, operate, and maintain.